How I failed as an author

Or how it's actually pretty damn hard to make it work as a career

I started writing when I was about six years old. I drew pictures to accompany my writing. I read a poem out at primary assembly and I remember the opening line - ‘Pink is the colour of my skin.’ Later as a grown up woman, the corporate world crushed my creativity, and I took my writing and sat on it, immersing myself in business speak, marketing jargon and powerpoint slides. I lived in my own internal fantasy world which only came out when I was drunk and made people laugh. In meetings my left field ideas, and comments were seen as odd. I felt an unexplainable emptiness, but wasn’t sure why.

My soul felt sad.

One night in my mid-thirties I was on holiday in France, and I had a peculiar waking dream. The dream was just hundreds of lines, racing through my head, words, some making sense, others nonsense. When I awoke, I started writing. I didn’t stop. I wrote 4 books in the space of 2 years. Sunday was my writing day (pre-kids) and I would write all day. Two of these books still sit on my laptop. They’re finished. One might be great. I felt on fire. I couldn’t even go to the loo when I was in the midst of one of my writing bouts.

Flash forward to five years ago and I managed to get an agent and my first book deal. I can share how that happened another time but it didn’t just drop in my lap. It was a path where I got rejected many times. Snotty emails. Shit sandwich emails. No emails at all. I felt like many of these agents were posh and didn’t approve of me because they didn’t recognise my surname.

However with my new agent I managed to get a publishing deal and WHOOSH. I was going to have my first book coming out.

I had no idea about book contracts or royalties. I went to lunch with my publisher and agent, and believed I was Marian Keyes. I had an inflated sense of ego because I was on Instagram and getting so much good feedback on stuff I shared. I was ready to give up work, and pursue this writing thing. I would have a swimming pool. A gym. I’d be on ‘Women’s Hour’. I’d host my own show on flipping ‘Women’s Hour’!

I waited for the brass band. The fanfare. Like when you’ve won the Lottery and they have drums and trumpets and confetti and blast the joyous noise into your face whilst you look up at the sky and laugh at the sheer abundance and joy of it all.

‘It’s amazing isn’t it?’ my Dad said in one of the last conversations we had, ‘You’re going to be a published author.’

It wasn’t amazing yet. I had a slight sinking feeling about that already.

‘I’ll still have to work Dad,’ I said, ‘I mean it’s unlikely that I can retire and just write full time.’

‘But still. It’s amazing Nik,’ he said dipping his head slightly forwards in the way only he did and I have etched into my brain to replay late at night to ensure I don’t forget.

The book came out.

Another book came out about 12 months later.

I was writing feverishly whilst working in regular jobs. I would check Amazon obsessively. In fact I had 2 books that came out pretty much on the same day but with different publishers. I would watch as they came in high in the charts of ‘new books’ or whatever list it was, and then start to go back down again. I talked to my agent who told me what a turbulent time it was for books- it was because it was Covid or people were only buying certain types of books. I got two more books published and no longer had an agent. I had a conversation with a publisher where she tried to talk me into writing romantic fiction instead. By the end of last year I had had 5 books published. I did these books whilst making podcasts, holding down a full-time job and raising 2 kids. I could barely walk. I really felt like the winning book was just around the corner. I had the old books stacked in the shed. I gave them away to friends. I even forgot about one of them and only remembered when I found the Sainsbury’s bag in the kids plastic play house.

I was convinced that if I kept going, kept writing, got the books out, I would get the fanfare. The Amazon reviews were good! It was coming. The formal introduction into the writers club. The proper one.

Isn’t it amazing? I could hear dad’s voice echoing in my ears.

Except now he was no longer here and I couldn’t even see the pride in his eyes when he said it. My soul felt sad despite the podcasts telling me that it was authenticity that mattered. That happiness wasn’t built on financial gain.

It isn’t easy writing a book and it takes many hours on a laptop, telling your kids and friends to fuck off, and not getting enough Vitamin D so your bones silently crumble into a pile on the flor. I would say that the total income I have made for 5 books is about £2000.

It works out at £400 quid per book.

There are 750 hours in a month.

I took 4 months to write each.

So let’s say that’s about 1,500 hours (based on writing half of that time) which works out that my hourly rate was: 26p an hour.

‘That’s probably because your books were shit,’ you say.

You didn’t have a good plot. You were just one of those sad saps on Instagram who thinks they have an opinion.

I’ll take that. I am not a highly intellectual writer. I am maybe a bit of a basic bitch. I have a big presence on Instagram, and maybe that puts people off because so many have published books who are on IG, and it has become a sign of a crap book (let’s face it not all influencers have the gift of being good writers).

Perhaps I just chose the wrong themes? (I wrote about menopause before it became fashionable about 18 months later and everyone talked about it).

I am now working in a regular job. I am the breadwinner so I have to. I write for this platform. I write for my job sometimes. I do the odd article. I read the profiles of other writers who have made money from books with envy pumping through my veins. I want to punch them in the face. I do background research to check whether they have rich husbands, are famous already, or have trust funds that mean they can keep on writing for no return (of course some of them are successful and are making money and I do my research on them too - trying to understand what I’ve got wrong along the way).

‘It’s amazing,’ my dad said.

It was a day when he was wearing a deer antler baseball cap, and had just dived head first into a bush to help a stranger find his dog. It was his last Christmas on Earth. The one where he was drinking so much that I couldn’t go into his office because the sight of all the glass bottles made me want to run away and scream.

People tell me they like my writing. I thrive on those comments. Those comments are amazing. No really. They are.